As a wrencher, I spend a lot of time pumping my Harbor Freight floor jack. Unless you have a lift, a hydraulic floor jack is pretty much the only option when you have to take your wheels off or just get more clearance between the ground and the vehicle’s undercarriage. But yesterday, while attempting to walk the entire SEMA show in under eight hours (I did it, narrrowly), I discovered an electric jack, and I haven’t decided whether I like it or not. I’d love your thoughts.
A contraption with a rather sexual-sounding name, the Roadtek “EJack” promises to let you take a break from all that pumping you normally do to get your car up. Instead, there’s just a simple on/off switch and an up/down button. Hit the up button and listen as an electric motor whirrs at the base of the jack, raising its lifting arm slowly but surely. Hit the down button and see as the vehicle drops fairly quickly, as a hydraulic ram releases pressure.
Here, have a look at this eJack in action:
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This jack actually won a New Product Award this year from SEMA itself. On the association’s website under the “Tools & Equipment Product” category, you’ll see “GarageMax 3T Long Reach Electric Floor Jack (ROADTEK).”
The company’s representative showed off a few different wheel designs (plastic, aluminum, caster or regular) and weight ratings, with prices for two and three ton units spanning between about $350 and $450. That actually doesn’t sound that bad.
All of the EJacks use a standard power tool-type 20-volt battery that you can slide right into place near the top of the Roadtek’s handle. Once the battery is in in, you hit this red rocker switch at the front of the handle:
That rocker switch turns the EJack on, and with the green illuminated you just hit the “up” membrane-button and the arm rises.
The jack is fairly slow when going. up, but it’s quick when dropping. I assume this is because the electric motor is turning a power screw (which is naturally slow) (EDIT: Naw, it’s definitely just a tiny hydraulic pump -DT], which is pushing a piston to raise the arm. Here’s the electric motor that makes all the noise:
And here’s the hydraulic piston — note that Roadtek would not tell me how the electric motor interacts with the hydraulic ram to create lift, so I’m just going to assume a power screw for now.
You’ll see in the image above the previous one that there’s a little yellow tab; that’s meant to be pulled in order to lower the vehicle even if the battery has died and rendered the “down” membrain-button useless.
The handle post itself unscrews from the base via an orange collar. Here’s a look at the connectors:
I’m not entirely sure what I think about this device. Per the representative at the show, a common criticism they’re hearing is that this seems lazy. And indeed, if you look at the comments on my Instagram post, you’ll read things like “Seriously, how lazy can you be? Is their target audience just getting too much exercise?” and “How lazy do you have to be?” The representative reminded me that, before power tools, people were using hand-wrenches to undo bolts. This, she said, isn’t much different in terms of the evolution of wrenching.
One of the benefits of the system is that the handle stays where you set it, so if you don’t have much room in your one car garage-for example, you can just raise the hand to the vertical spot and hit the button. You don’t have to have space to swing that handle to pump the jack.
As for drawbacks, it seems slow, I’m curious about the weight compared to a conventional jack, and I’m also curious how long the batteries last on a single charge. Plus, I’d like to know what the life of the electric motor is, and whether those switches can hold up to serious abuse that’s commonplace in a garage. I also find the long handle — which exists on a traditional jack to provide leverage — to be largely superfluous; just give us a wired remote so I can raise the jack while looking at where it’s lifting from? The Roadtek rep did tell me the motor is meant to be serviceable, and if I had to guess, the battery life is more than enough for a casual DIY’er who probably isn’t jacking up cars all day
The bigger issue is that Roadtek seems to barely exist as a company. It has pretty much zero internet trace, and its website looks like this:
So, whether anyone will be able to buy the “EJack,” we just don’t know yet. But the device has made a big splash this year at SEMA, so who knows. I could folks wanting one, especially at those fairly reasonable prices.
I’d much rather have one of the airbag jacks. Far fewer failure points, smaller footprint, lighter, faster.